David Kamerer

Associate Professor of Communication, Loyola University Chicago

PR needed here: AIG

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And I agree.

AIG.pngFirst, some background. In September, the Treasury promised insurance giant AIG some $85 billion in credit to keep the company afloat. In October, AIG got another $38 billion. By Monday, that may increase by another $40 billion. Total tab to you and me: $150 billion.

So what has this “confederacy of dunces” (Holtz’s words) done with our money?
The company put the former head of its financial products unit, Joseph J. Cassano, on retainer. His salary? One million dollars a month. Former CEO Martin J. Sullivan, who ran the company into the ground, got a $5 million “performance bonus.”
In October, just days after receiving the first bailout, the company spent $443,000 on an executive retreat in Half Moon Bay, California. Reaction to this event has been negative. And bipartisan. Barack Obama said the executives should be fired. George W. Bush’s press secretary, Dana Perino, said AIG’s behavior was “pretty despicable.”
And now, ABC News’ Brian Ross reports another lavish AIG resort getaway in Phoenix, this time only about one-third of a million dollars’ worth. The most damning thing Ross presents is that the hotel staff was instructed to keep the so-called educational seminar quiet. No “Welcome AIG” signs here. The ostensible goal: to keep AIG out of the news.

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The key values that need to be addressed here are honesty and transparency. If AIG is going to be a quasi-public company, it needs to do business in an honest manner. You don’t need to be a genius to know this: good performance begats good PR. It’s easy to tell your story when you’ve nothing to hide.
If you’re going to sell high-end financial products to financial analysts, a luxury resort may be in order. But lying about it – failing to disclose publicly that it’s your event – is wrong. It breeds mistrust. It hurts the company, both long-  and short-term.
AIG needs to entirely reboot its communications process. 
The company needs to operate in the sunshine. The company should hire – at the highest level – an ombudsman to represent its public ownership. This person would have to train the executives to operate under this new paradigm, and should have unfettered access to daily activities. This new approach would have to be practiced at every level of the company.
The company should publish its aggressive plans to pay back our $150 billion. It needs to proactively tell the story of its good stewardship of our money. It needs to show gratitude.
All across America, people are losing their jobs and companies are closing their doors. We’re hurting. AIG needs to hurt, too. Its guests may enjoy the resort, but AIG employees need to sleep at the Ramada. Salaries need to be reined in and made public. Bonuses, which may be necessary to attract some top talent, need to be linked to actual long-term high performance, and they need to be deferred.
AIG has created a big hole to climb out of. We’re provided a ladder. We should be cheering for their success. It’s not such a far-fetched concept. 
Remember when Lee Iacocca became the voice of Chrysler after receiving a Federal bailout?
He gave a bravura performance as the conscience, the brains, the drive of the New Chrysler.
AIG needs its own Iacocca: someone to to talk to us, reassure us, and show the company’s relentless effort to repay us for our faith in the company. This individual should probably be an outsider, someone with a stellar reputation, probably from a service industry. Perhaps a respected legislator or judge. 
The message needs to be, “no more business as usual at AIG. We’re a new company with a new set of rules, and all that bad behavior is in the past.” 
And then they have to do the work.
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How can AIG mend its image? What can the company do to better tell its story?
Resources for discussion:
AIG website (includes video links of CEO Edward Liddy and a statement on the meeting in Phoenix)

How to get started on Twitter … and who are these people?

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With much of social media, there’s the “getting started” problem. For example, suppose you’ve just activated an account at Twitter. What next? You’re following no one, and no one is following you. Not much fun, is it?

If you’ve been contemplating joining the Twitter community, here’s some excellent advice on getting started from David Meerman Scott, author of The New Rules of Marketing & PR. This book, by the way, is an excellent introduction to using social media.
One way to get going is to generate a feed of Twitter users in your community. You can do this at twitterlocal, or by using the advanced search function at Twitter.
Another approach? Figure out who the power Twitter users are, and follow them. Or, you could follow the top Tweeters at TwitterGrader, which purports to analyze the influence of Twitter users.
But don’t look for me on the list. I’m taking Twitter pass/fail.
Follow me @davidkamerer
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Thanks to Clemson University Professor Mihaela Vorvoreanu for the post upon which this entry is based.

Go where the eyeballs are

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Nicholas D. Kristof enjoys a prominent perch in American life; he’s a columnist for the New York Times, where he can reach millions of people every week. But he’s also on Facebook, where he has almost 20,000 fans. Why Facebook? The principle is simple: for maximum influence, go where the eyeballs are. According to Alexa.com, Facebook is the #5 most visited website in the U.S.; NYTimes.com is #21.

That’s the biggest limitation for a lot of bloggers. You can manage the technical hurdles and you can create the content. But in the end, there may not be a lot of eyeballs at David Kamerer’s Spoonful. Or at my public relations blog, PRNeededHere.com. I’m building traffic, but it’s not like perezhilton.com over here. Perez is on a superhighway; I’m a two-lane blacktop.

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But I’m learning to go where the eyeballs are. In the past week I’ve cloned my blogs twice. LinkedIn’s new applications create new opportunities to host content on your LinkedIn page. I installed Six Apart’s Blog Link, and my blog instantly flowed on to my LinkedIn page. Blog Link also found my contacts’ blogs, which are also viewable from my page. Simple and brilliant.


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I also participate in a public relations social media site, PR Open Mic. I cross-posted some blog entries there, and instantly got a lot of comments. The process is pretty simple; from my blog dashboard, copy the blog entry HTML, and then paste it into a window. Preview it, touch up the code, and publish. 
Every time I clone my blogs, I reach a new audience. It’s a few more breadcrumbs to make it easier for interested readers to find my work. I’m glad to have you as a reader, whether here or there.

Netflix get its Mac act together

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netflixlogo.jpgRejoice! Macintosh users can finally instantly view Netflix movies on their computers. For the past year or so, this feature has only worked with Windows computers. The Mac viewer is in Beta, so there may be little hiccups here and there.

Here’s how to get access to instant viewing with your Mac. First, you must be a Netflix customer. If you are on an “unlimited” plan, you can use this feature all you want. Other plans have monthly limits. 
You’ll need to download Microsoft Silverlight 2 software and install it. Then, follow this link to opt in to the beta test. Restart your browser. Then you should be able to view available Netflix titles instantly.
For high quality viewing, you’ll need a fast Internet connection. Here’s how Netflix sees it:
  • High quality: 1.6 Mbps or faster
  • Medium quality: 1 – 1.5 Mbps
  • Low quality: less than 1 Mbps
Not sure if your Internet is fast enough? Test your connection speed here.
Netflix is also in the process of rolling this service out to selected devices that are more at home connected to your television set. These include the XBox 360, newer Tivo boxes, the Netflix Roku player and combo players (which include a Blu-Ray drive) from LG Electronics and Samsung. 
You don’t have to be a futurist to know that the days of the shiny disk are numbered. This multi-platform approach, combined with Netflix’s vast catalog (more than 100,000 titles and growing) and excellent customer service, position Netflix to be a leader in the post-disk era.
Crave more Netflix information? Visit Hacking Netflix, an unauthorized blog that covers the service in great detail.

Obama takes change online

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I call on president-elect Obama to create a community of committed Americans to discuss the solutions to the problems that face us. I call on him to designate a US Community Manager, with a small staff, to moderate and harvest those discussions to solve the country’s problems. Forget polls. With a few million people in my.america.gov, Obama will be able to tap into the world’s largest focus group. Communities are cheap, compared to most of what the government does. Create a space for the brightest people you know; use them to attract the best ideas. And better yet, use this energized community to sell those ideas to America.
A day later, Obama answered the challenge with change.gov, a social media site,  to create engagement in the transition process. 
On the site, you can read Obama’s transition blog, upload your vision for the future (with images), apply for a job and learn more about Obama’s policies and transition team.
A hint of things to come? You can join the site by providing your email address and zip code. No doubt Obama will take direct engagement to the people to a new level. That’s one of the hallmarks of the social media campaign that propelled him into office.
Yet another way that our President-elect is using social media to tell his story: Obama put his election photos on Flickr under Creative Commons license. 
Read more about the creation of change.gov at Mashable and ReadWriteWeb.

How Obama did it

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Barack Obama climbed almost insurmountable odds in his bid to become our next president. As candidates go, he was inexperienced. He had to face down a powerful opponent – Hillary Clinton – and then maintain momentum against the Republican machine and John McCain. His race was undoubtably a negative for some voters.

To be sure, Obama is a gifted and charismatic speaker. And Bush’s dismal failures made America ready for change.
But Obama won because he ran an expert campaign. I think it’s the largest and most successful social media campaign ever. Through it, he engaged voters and raised an unprecedented amount of money. 
I attended an Obama event in March, and my name and email address entered the campaign system. After that, I received timely – almost daily – messages from the campaign. They were personalized, relevant, and tactically addressed issues as they arose. Each missive included an easy way to donate, and encouraged even modest contributions. Multiply that by the millions who engaged with Obama, and you’ve got a genuine groundswell of social equity.
Make note of these names: David Axelrod, chief strategist. And David Plouffe, campaign manager. These are the geniuses who led Obama to victory. 
Posts like these will have to hold you until someone writes a book documenting the strategy and tactics that elected Obama. That will be THE book about the 2008 presidential election.

How to handle job layoffs

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This morning brought news of a layoff of 500 at Hawker Beechcraft, even though the company has has backlog of more than $7 billion. It’s a necessary, strategic adjustment, and for some employees, it’s going to hurt like hell. Kudos to CEO Jim Schuster for clearly and honestly telling the company’s story.


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The company is preparing for a serious economic storm. According to a letter to employees written by Schuster, quoted in an article by Molly McMillin in the Wichita Eagle, it’s time to act on “long overdue talent upgrade actions – we have no room for underachievers, particularly in these difficult times.” HBC will also defer capital spending, build cash reserves, reduce inventory and scale back forecasts.
Shel Holtz offers nine tips for handling job layoffs on his blog. It’s the job every PR professional dreads. But one of the themes of effective public relations practice is to focus on long-term success, and communicating bad news is part of the job. It’s no time for a pity party; the focus should be on the good of the enterprise, says Holtz.
It’s easy to take good times for granted, in our lives or in business. Whether it’s stocks or real estate values, we quietly accept prosperity, but become outraged when the economy tanks. So take note: the pendulum will swing both ways.
In a letter written by Schuster, quoted in the Wichita Eagle, “Never again are we likely to face circumstances quite like those we face today. Never again are we likely to have the platform on which to drive change and build value.
“I have always believed that great companies come to life when times are most challenging – ladies and gentlemen, you are the team, and this is the time.”
Good work by the HBC senior management and communication team. While there’s nothing wrong with hoping for the best, it’s the company’s obligation to prepare for the worst.

Links for 11-03-08

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Career advice via crowdsourcing

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Attention public relations/marketing/IMC students: Here’s a click that’s worth your time. Brad J. Ward of Butler University asked his Twitter followers the question above. Here are the answers that came back. It’s a lovely mosaic of truly useful information. 

This kind of search is possible through the Twitter hashtag, which is frequently used for live tweeting of events. Everyone agrees to use a short alphanumeric code, preceded by the pound sign (#), so Twitter Search can find them all. Just enter the hastag as your search term. That way, you can read the tweets, even if you don’t follow all of the individuals who are participating.

Sure enough, there’s a website that keeps track of hashtags.

Take your portfolio online

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This morning I spoke to high school students attending portfolio day at Friends University. I suggested to the students that, while a physical portfolio is essential, an online portfolio can be a useful way to leverage the work and help develop an online reputation. Useful when someone needs to see your portfolio right now, or when your portfolio needs to be in two places at once. Saves on postage, too.

An online portfolio tacitly shows that you’re comfortable working in an online, digital environment. So start scanning, digitizing, photographing and writing, and get that work online. 
Using the SaaS approach (Software as a Service), you don’t have to write a bunch of code to create an online portfolio. Host it from a click ‘n build website or a blogging platform. Then link, link, link! Photos? Link to Flickr. Video? Link to Vimeo. Powerpoints? Try Slideshare.
Here are some of the other tools I talked about:
Behance.net, currently open by invitation, offers a well-designed online portfolio space. Currently in beta.

Etsy.com, online marketplace for selling handmade things.

Issuu.com, tool for presenting and sharing formatted printed documents online.

VisualCV.com, currently in beta, allows you to create an interactive, online CV and post it in a searchable database.

DeviantArt.com, suggested by a student. International art community that allows you to upload your art, view art by category and participate in social activities.